Red Hot Invaders

“There!” he mumbled into his snorkel, words coming out garbled, like his mouth was loaded with wet marbles. Tiny bubbles whirled from his mouthpiece. I finned down for a closer look, bypassing a myriad of tropical fish that resembled sparkling jewels in the brilliant sunlight. In a dark void beneath the colossal coral-head, I peered to see not one, but two of the most voracious predators of the sea – the pterois volitans – the fearless red lionfish. Like lightening, I swirled backwards, whirling into a reverse turbo-charged spin. “Geez!” I gulped, heart pounding in my ears. This guy definitely required respect.

Lionfish are stunning to watch, but don’t touch. “You’ll want to die,” hoarsely whispered Diane, my Caribbean friend, over a lunch of conchburgers at the Red Hot Mama the next day. Surely she was kidding, I thought. Then with bulging eyes, she leaned in towards me, and described how she had been stung when shelling off a remote sandbar. Bent double in pain, she chewed on wood, as her sister pored hot water over her foot – the recommended treatment for drawing out poison. "I found a magnificent shell though!” she beamed at me. That’s the spirit of the islands here.

It’s not only humans who regard the formidable lionfish warily. Armed with eighteen billowy fins, lionfish ambush prey by paralyzing them with venomous spines, then suck them down in one violent gulp – fins, scales and all. With an alien face, the lionfish resembles my grandmother’s hatpin cushion, shredded by a rogue Rottweiler. Slight comfort to know they don’t eat humans. No one has perished from lionfish stings, either.

Where did they come from? Lionfish are native to warm Indo-Pacific waters. It’s believed they were accidentally swept into the Atlantic thirteen years ago from aquariums when hurricane Andrew ravaged Florida. Others were intentionally released by well-meaning private aquarium owners after Finding Nemo hit the box office. Few are aware of the negative impact an invasive species can cause on native fish like lobster, grouper, and snapper.

Lionfish are rapidly expanding into the Caribbean at an alarming pace. And governments are very worried.

Because of their voracious appetite, a single lionfish can devour up to twenty juvenile fish in a half hour. On one experimental reef, juveniles were reduced by 80% in five weeks. Often, these are native fish species critical to tourism and fishing industries.

Lionfish also display an impressive reproductive rate. An adult female can release a pair of eggs sacs five times each month, laying as many as 30,000 eggs several times year-round. Veteran dive operators have warned that it could be the worst ecological disaster the world has ever experienced. One expert compared the lionfish to “a plague of locusts”.

As a result, many recreational divers are removing lionfish from the reef. Like, “killing them on site?” I questioned Diane. She happens to be a naturalist, working to protect her island’s natural marine resources. “You have to! Groupers are only now beginning to recover from the over-fishing of the 1970’s and ‘80s,” she insisted. I gulped. I’m a real chicken when it comes to squaring off with a lion.

“People eat venomous fish in Southeast Asia. Maybe it tastes good!” I questioned my dear friend, hoping she’d let me off the hook of scoring a lionfish. “Skinning a pin cushion would be fun to see,” Diane laughed with a glint in her eye.

Today, I’m off to hunt the fearsome predator of the deep, clad in a full wetsuit, hood, and gloves. I’m hesitant. I follow the Buddhist proverb of abstaining from harmful acts against nature. So, upon reflection, I think I’ll just snap a photo. Maybe the lionfish will establish harmony with the reef, and become a creature to be respected, instead of feared and destroyed.

This may already be happening. The stomachs of several groupers have been found containing remnants of lionfish, establishing hope that "native grouper species are beginning to prey on red lionfish with some regularity," as reported by Simon Fraser University’s Tropical Marine Lab recently.

It was my turn. Peter, my husband, was snorkeling below our dinghy. I like to go in last, just so he can tell me if Jaws is lurking about. Once given the ‘thumbs up’, I plunged in and saw below me fuchsia-tipped sea anemone wriggling in crystalline, turquoise-blue waters, and a dwarf sea horse shimmying along the skinny branches of a purple gorgonian that undulated in the current.

Then I began to relax. It had been a fast and furious 10-day passage from Florida to the Virgin Islands. We had sailed together onboard Scud, our St. Francis 44’ catamaran. Suddenly I was snapped out of my musings when Peter’s eyes went wide inside the frame of his face mask. With his forefinger, he gesticulated at a gargantuan coral-head, twenty-feet below us on the sea floor, and then motioned for me to free dive down. I was taken aback, but then, upon further reflection, he was the one clutching the spear for Jaws. For you know who, just in case…

Feeling apprehensive, I peered around me and then down into the busy reef for possible signs of trouble. A foolishly smiling parrot fish grazed on elkhorn coral and a large turtle darted by in alarm, its flippers fueling fast, obviously upset with our intrusion. My hackles rose, but I still couldn’t find what gave rise to Peter’s concern. All appeared happy and content inside the Caribbean Explorer Channel to me. Yet something was there ... Snorkeling in the Virgins is always an adventure, and today looked to be unlike any other.